Barcodes are graphical patterns of black rectangles separated by white spaces. In one dimensional barcodes, the widths of the black rectangles and white spaces are used to encode alpha-numeric values.
In the retail industry, barcodes are found on products, coupon offers, and sales receipts. At a point-of-sale terminal, the barcode on a product is scanned to determine the widths of the rectangles and spaces. This information is then decoded to generate a numeric value that can be applied against a database to retrieve a price and description for the product. Similarly, coupon barcodes are scanned to produce a numeric value that represents the savings offer associated with the coupon and in some cases to produce a numeric value that represents the item that is to be purchased with the coupon. For example, one portion of the barcode will indicate that the coupon is for bananas, and another portion of the barcode will indicate that the coupon provides fifty-cents off. The barcode on a receipt identifies the transaction associated with the receipt and allows the merchant to quickly locate information about the transaction simply by scanning the barcode on the receipt.
Current barcodes are limited because they only provide encoded information. As a result, they are of little use to consumers and at times occupy valuable space that could otherwise be used to communicate with consumers. In addition, because the barcodes only provide encoded information, fraudulent consumers have placed fake barcodes on packages so that a less expensive product will be identified at the point-of-sale terminal based on the fake barcode.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.